ABSTRACT
The adoption of Christianity as the state religion of the late Roman empire introduced a pattern of criminalizing male homosexuality that persisted until the 18th century. Even today the effects of centuries of legal stigmatiza tion remain difficult to eradicate. While criminal sanctions for adult homosexual conduct have disappeared from the law codes of most advanced industrial countries (though this is the case in only half of the American states), they linger in some Marxist nations and are even spreading in the Third World. In the light of this mixed picture, a careful study of the premises of sexual law and law reform is necessary.
